Erin Moran‘s husband, Steve Fleischmann, has revealed that the late Happy Days star passed away after battling throat cancer.
Fleischmann, who married Erin in 1993, explained that she was first diagnosed with the disease back in November of last year. Erin, who was 56, quickly became extremely ill and was unable to speak or feed herself.
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On Tuesday, Steve Fleischmann broke his silence for the first time following Erin’s death by penning a heartbreaking statement in which he shared the full story of his late wife’s final moments.
The statement reads:
“This might be long but keep reading if you want to know about Erin. Ok here we go. Erin and I met 4/22/1992 and parted ways 4/22/2017. We were planning to go to Thunder Over Louisville to celebrate. She was feeling fine on our anniversary 11-23-2016. Maybe four or five days after we got back Erin woke up and had about a dime size blood stain on her pillowcase. She said I think I bit my tongue. A couple days go by and there’s a bigger spot of blood. We get like 4 days into December, there’s more blood. I get a flashlight and say let me look. It was not her tongue it was tonsil on the left side. I thought it was tonsillitis.
So we went to an ENT who said they wanted to biopsy it. It came back squamous cell carcinoma. She started radiation and chemo. Five days a week radiation and chemo only on Thursdays. We did that the whole time. It got so bad so fast. By the middle of February, Erin could no longer speak or eat or drink. She had a feeding tube implant and I feed her 6 to 8 times a day.
She was still happy, she was active, she texted people on her phone all day. On the 21st she was having trouble breathing. She woke up on the 22nd, she was not 100%. She needed Kleenex, so I went to the store and came back. She was there watching TV in bed. I laid down next to her held her right hand in my left. I feel asleep woke up about a (sic) hour later still holding her hand and she was gone, she was just gone.
Norton Cancer Institute never said how bad it was. The coroner told me it was really really bad. it had spread to her spleen, she had a lot of fluid in her lungs and part of her brain was infected. The coroner said even if she was in the hospital being pumped full of antibiotics she still would not have made it. He said it was the best that she was with me and went in her sleep. So that’s it.”
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[H/T Daily Mail]